


ripping open scars

by Areiton



Series: in the cold, we find warmth [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, M/M, POV Tony Stark, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Protective Tony Stark, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-04-06 00:20:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19051456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: “JARVIS. Facial recognition program. World wide. Throw the net over everything.”“Who are we looking for, Sir?” JARVIS asks, and Tony’s lips tighten.“Sergeant James Barnes.”





	ripping open scars

Steve tells him while he’s still in the hospital. 

Natasha stands nearby, arms cross and face carefully blank and Steve tells him a story so fantastical it can't be true.

A story of blood and loss and murder and he is wrapped up in it, every step of the way. His father, his legacy, all tied in with a man who killed them. 

He listens to the American icon, his voice steady and earnest and un-fucking-believable. 

And when he's done, when he runs out of words and fantastical stories--Tony leaves.

~*~ 

Rhodey comes for him. 

It makes him smile, drunk and weeping, because this. _T_ _ his _ . It may not be a superhero storybook friendship, a seventy year epic--but it was good and true and  _ his.  _

Rhodey comes for him because Rhodey has always come for him,  _ will always  _ come for him. 

He tucks him into a shower, tucks him into bed, and in the morning, he feeds him, quiet and steady and Tony knows--Rhodey won’t ask. 

Rhodey will never ask. 

But when he’s ready--Rhodey will listen. 

~*~ 

He cries, again, when he watches the footage. JARVIS is quiet, the only sound in his bedroom the bitten off sobs, Rhodey’s gentle shushing, his low crooning as Tony sobs. 

He thought he was over it--his parent’s death a long healed wound, scarred over, something he  _ survived.  _

This feels like ripping it open, carving a new scar, and he isn’t sure how to survive it, a second time. 

~*~ 

“What are you going to do?” Rhodey asks. It’s gentle, but inexorable, and Tony knows--he knows it’s time. 

He’s wallowed for almost a month. 

It’s time.

“Rogers is looking for him. He didn’t ask for my help,” Tony says. 

“He told you the man killed your parents--asking for your help would have been a dick move.” 

Tony shrugs, because it’s not like Steve hasn’t been a dick before. 

Still. He told the truth. Even knowing Tony could turn his considerable resources against Barnes--he told him. 

Tony sighs. “I have to help him, don’t I?” 

Rhodey doesn’t say anything, and Tony doesn’t look at him. 

He doesn’t want to see whatever the hell his best friend’s face is doing. 

~*~ 

Wilson and Rogers are shit at tracking Barnes. 

That’s the first thing he realizes. They’re trying but they’re working with subpar tech, and it’s not like Steve Rogers can go anywhere without attracting attention. SHIELD is a smoking wreckage, and that’s a problem in and of itself, but smoke has always been a wonderful screen. And he knows this is the worst kind of self-destructive. 

Helping the man who murdered his parents is fucking insane. He  _ knows  _ it. 

“JARVIS. Facial recognition program. World wide. Throw the net over everything.” 

“Who are we looking for, Sir?” JARVIS asks, and Tony’s lips tighten. 

“Sergeant James Barnes.” 

~*~ 

It takes another three weeks and by then, Barnes has fled to Europe. 

By then, Tony has hacked every database that even resembles SHIELD or Hydra, dug as far and deep as he can to find every scrap of information he can on the Fist of Hydra. 

He hasn’t slept much--not before, when he was searching, and sure as hell not after, when everything that was done to Barnes played out in front of him in neatly ordered reports. Like torturing a man and stripping him of his mind and autonomy and humanity for  _ seventy years _ could be reduced to a few hundred pages of mission reports and Asset briefings. 

He drank himself stupid, after he read it, and called Rhodey. 

“I fucked up,” he says. 

Rhodey read the information, and it twisted in Tony’s gut because--it wasn’t his story to tell. But when Rhodey looked at him--and he forced himself to look back, this time, to  _ see _ what was in his best friend’s eyes--he saw horror and compassion and pride. 

“You’re doing the right thing, Tones,” Rhodey promised him and that--that was enough. 

~*~ 

He doesn’t tell Steve. 

He doesn’t need Steve Rogers approval. 

All he’s ever needed was James Rhodes, and he has that. 

~*~ 

Barnes surfaces in Belfast, and Tony--Tony watches. 

~*~ 

He’s good. 

He should be, he’s been doing this for almost a century, has more experience than anyone alive. 

Tony watches him, slipping through Europe like a shadow-- _ a ghost-- _ always lurking just on the edges of notice, blending in so well that sometimes, JARVIS loses him for a day or two. He always resurfaces, working his way east. 

And then--in Budapest--he stops. 

~*~

James looks hungry. 

He’s been tucked into his apartment--a tiny dirty thing he has to be squatting in--for almost a week, and whenever he emerges--he looks gaunt, haunted, on edge and anxious. 

It makes Tony ache. 

The drone is a bad idea--he knows he’s getting too close, knows damn well it’s time to call Rogers and hand over his bestie. 

But he doesn’t. He sends the little drone, small and unthreatening, and he waits. Watches. 

James watches him back. 

It stretches, for what feels like hours, before JARVIS alerts him to nearby police activity and Tony sends the drone to monitor it. 

But when he goes back--he takes food. 

~*~ 

“Are you going to tell Steve?” Rhodey asks. Tony is curled on the couch in the ‘shop, his tablet propped on his legs, watching Jamie putting his arm back together. Nerves and the bone deep desire to  _ help _ curdle like sour milk in his gut, and he barely registers the question. Rhodey nudges him and Tony shakes his head. 

“Not yet.” 

“Why not?” 

~*~ 

Jamie isn’t ready. He’s shy and quiet and likes books and chocolate and rain on the thin glass of his apartment, and he has nightmares, nightmares that leave him hoarse from screaming, nightmares that make Tony  _ ache  _ to hold him, to sooth away those fears, and in every one, it’s Steve’s name he screams. His hands spasming at his side, grief fury anger danger in his voice--it never changes. 

Tony closes his eyes. 

~*~ 

“He isn’t ready to face Steve yet, Rhodey.” 

~*~ 

Jamie is sweet. 

He didn’t expect that. 

He didn’t expect a man who delights over books and soft sweaters, who tells him about his mother’s baking and bites his lip when sunlight tips through the window, who has horrible bedhead and a worse attitude about mornings than Tony, who greets his drone with a shy smile and a gentle finger brushed against the burnished metal, who looks, instinctive, for it when he goes into the city. 

He wanted to help, because Barnes deserved that after the hell Hydra put him through. 

Now--now he wants to help Jamie. 

For no reason other than--it’s Jamie. 

~*~ 

“Sir,” JARVIS says, and Tony jerks awake. “Sir, they’ve found him.” 

~*~ 

Jamie goes still, and he’s so lovely and Tony knows--he’s going to destroy this man. This fragile peace he’s found. He glances at the video feed JARVIS is feeding him on Hydra and his heart jerks, terror spiking hot in his veins. 

“What do I need to do?” he asks, and it’s not the Winter Soldier's voice. 

That’s Jamie.  _ His  _ Jamie, a voice he knows from long rambling confessions, books read until his throat is hoarse, a voice he falls asleep to, sometimes, a voice he loves. 

Tony closes his eyes. “You have to run.” 

~*~ 

The drone watches. 

The little apartment--there is still warm cookies on the counter, a book forgotten on the floor, a blanket crumpled on the musty mattress. 

Chocolate wrappers fill an empty tea mug. 

It looks, Tony thinks, heart pounding, like a place where someone was happy. 

The drone watches, as Hydra destroys it. 

The drone watches, until someone finds it. The scrap of paper it sits on. 

“He’s going to Quebec.” 

The feed cuts, abruptly, and Tony smiles as JARVIS switches the video feed to a camera a few blocks away. It’s dim, but he sees it--

He sees the apartment go up in brilliant explosion that lights up the night. 

 


End file.
